Excellent – exceptional, marvelous, outstanding, wonderful
Excellence is not what I do or achieve in life. Excellence is my life, hidden in Christ. The outworking of His life through me in the power of Holy Spirit is an excellent life. Nothing less than Him.
I am to BE excellent in a world that is easily satisfied with the common, in addition to the perverse and the shallow. As Christians, are we to be satisfied with the common good as our standard when an excellent Christ lives in and through us? I am raising the bar in my life, not to perform, but to BE in Christ wherever I am and in whatever I am doing. Excellence in Christ in me changes the atmosphere wherever I go.
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Excellence is not rooted in elitism, or thinking that you are better than, richer than, smarter than, thinner than (fill in the blank). To be excellent is to be the best you – not linked to performance, appearance, or even intelligence. Excellence is rooted in being the authentic YOU in Christ, who you are created to be.
The previous blog, A Discriminating Palette, shared my heart about restricting my diet from junk food, both spiritually and naturally. I can’t waste away taking in massive amounts of information or looking at endless images on social media that do little to build me up or enrich my life. My hunger and thirst shall be satisfied in Christ.
And Jesus said to them, “ I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. (John 6:35 NKJVS)
In Christ, I partake of His excellent divine nature, which sets me apart from that which is common and ordinary.
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. (2 Peter 1:2-4 NKJVS)
The excellence of His power is hidden in lives that appear to be ordinary. Remember, excellence is not determined by outward appearances but by inwardly conforming to the life of Christ.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us (2 Corinthians 4:7 NKJVS)
In Christ, I am seated in heavenly places, giving me access to eternal revelation, plans, purposes, thoughts, ideas, creativity, innovation and move.
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-7 NKJVS)
Living an excellent life in Christ seats us in heavenly places, above the deteriorating conditions that surround us each day, hoping to uproot our source of peace. The destruction that we see in the earth today opens our eyes to see that we are in the world but not of the world and thereby can influence and change the world in the reality of Christ in us, the hope of glory.
Living an excellent life, we are able to be the beautiful expression of Christ no matter what our physical conditions. What emanates from us is a language of excellence and glory that transforms and changes lives around us. Be excellent in wisdom and in grace – pursue that which builds up, edifies, challenges, confronts, glorifies Christ, flows in love and mercy, takes a stand, and moves against the grain of shallow cultural thought which trends to the masses each and every day. Be excellent.
In Christ,
Debra
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